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I have been going crazy for recipes from the ZAHAV COOKBOOK. You ask “what is a Turkish Hummus a la Zahav”? I made up the a la Zahav so I honored Michael Solomonov. But seriously, these recipes are so good. I don’t think I have ever been so impressed by the recipes in a cookbook as I have this cookbook. You got to try it. I have posted a few recipes thus far with the most surprising (to me) being the TAHINI SEMIFREDDO. Tahini in a dessert?
Tahini Semifreddo from Feed Your Soul Too
Turkish Hummus a la Zahav from Feed Your Soul Too
So what can you do to hummus to make it super rich and super flavorful? How about we roast some garlic in the oven, and then, squeeze out the sweet goodness created from the slow cooking. Is that enough? NO! How about we add the sweet roasted garlic in a skillet with butter. After the garlic and butter melt together the resulting sweet concoction is put into a blender with some tahini, olive oil and some salt and cumin. The blended mixture is smooth and creamy. Think we are done? Not quite.
The tahini hummus mixture is placed in a skillet and baked in an oven. It gets a crispy exterior and gets a nice color to it. Now, you think we are done? Not quite. The final step, which absolutely, has to be done and is the coup d’etat is the pan frying of the chickpeas. My little spin on this recipe is this pan frying of the chickpeas. The chickpeas get this amazing crunchiness. It is like a roasted nut. The final Turkish Hummus a la Zahav is topped with these crunchy chickpeas. Wow. This recipe is the best hummus I have ever tasted.
The butter and roasted garlic in s sauté pan.
Butter and Roasted Garlic
The ingredients in the blender.
Ingredients In Blender
The Turkish Hummus a la Zahav plated.
Turkish Hummus a la Zahav plated
- • 1 15 ounce can plus a handful chickpeas, divided
- • 2 teaspoon baking soda, divided
- • 1 head garlic
- • 2 tablespoons Olive oil
- • 4 tablespoons butter
- • Juice of 1 lemon
- • Salt to taste
- Cut the top off a head of garlic, drizzle it with olive oil, and roast it in a 350-degree oven until brown and very soft.
- Squeeze out the roasted garlic into a medium saucepan and add the butter.
- Melt the butter slowly with the garlic.
- Combine the cooked chickpeas, the butter-garlic mixture, and the lemon juice in a blender or food processor and purée until smooth.
- Salt well.
- Take the extra chickpeas and toss into a skillet on medium high heat.
- Cook until the chickpeas become crunchy.
- Transfer to an ovenproof skillet and sprinkle some whole cooked chickpeas on top.
- Bake until the top is golden brown, about 5 minutes.
- Garnish with olive oil and roasted chickpeas.
- Serve and enjoy!
Hi Peter! I noticed in the comments you corrected the tahini and cumin omissions, but you didn’t edit the main post/recipe. Could you fix this in the main blog post and recipe? Thanks! Can’t wait to try it!
First off, I love Zahav! One of the best restaurants in Philadelphia. I’ve been dying to re-create their Turkish Hummus.
I was reading you comments above the recipe saying that you put tahini and cumin, but I don’t see them in the actual recipe. How much of these would you recommend adding when blending the mixture?
Thanks!
Thx for alerting me. I went back to check. I used about 1/2 cup of tahini and you could use more. I used 1/2 tsp of cumin. Let me know if you try it.
I ate at Zahav the other night and was able to enjoy this hummus firsthand from the master. It was amazing, and I am glad that I found your version of it so that I may try to recreate it myself.
I love that restaurant and am glad you found this recipe. Be sure to search out the other Zahav recipes I have created. They are all so good. Just use Zahav in the search bar.
I can’t wait to make this recipe. It sounds like a great variation to rather on this. I had a question about the baking soda. I didn’t see when to added to the mixture.
Thx for stopping by Vicki. It is such a fun recipe, especially the roasted chickpeas. If you use dry chickpeas, the baking soda is added in 1/2 as they soak over night. The second half is added when cooking the chickpeas. Hope this helps.
bookmarked this! Looks amazing!
thx so much. Thinking of recreating in the next week when I have guests over.